Outside the City of London, the perception that regulator is often soft on wrongdoers, persists. Photograph D Burke/Alamy

There has been a flurry of disciplinary action from the Financial Services Authority of late, little of it – on the face of it at least – likely to have many City professionals quaking in their boots. Three years ago, FSA boss Hector Sants sought to present a new regulatory mood in the Square Mile. "There is a view that people are not frightened of the FSA," he said with theatrical menace. "This is a view I am determined to correct." The message was "Be afraid, be very afraid …"

On Monday, Ian Hannam, the highly experienced head of capital markets at JP Morgan Cazenove, was disciplined over indiscreet emails to an undisclosed investor interested in Kurdistan. One email relayed Hannam's plans to lunch with Tony Buckingham, founder of Heritage Oil, an exploration group with interests in Kurdistan. The email concluded: "PS – Tony has found oil and it is looking good." Another message said: "I thought I would update you on discussions that have been going on with a potential acquirer of Tony Buckingham's business."

Hannam insists he was not deliberately passing on inside information – quite ridiculous, in fact, of the FSA to make such a fuss about. In response the regulator has issued a £450,000 fine for "non-deliberate market abuse".

Another explanation for a non-deliberate transgression was accepted by the FSA in relation to its investigation into David Einhorn, the US hedge fund boss who sold a huge holding in Britain's largest pub landlord group Punch Taverns just before a heavily-diluting right issue three years ago. Einhorn had made clear he did not want to be told insider information, and has insisted he was not aware that was what he had when his Greenlight fund sold the Punch stake, avoiding losses of £5.8m. He was fined £7.2m.

Arguably one of the hedge fund industry's most astute and sophisticated investors, he should have known he was dealing in inside information – and had he known it would have been a matter for criminal investigation – but, the FSA accept, Einhorn simply did not realise.

Then, last week, came the FSA's verdict on the misleading statements scandal that brought down doorstep lender Cattles, previously a FTSE 250 company with a market value of more than £1bn. Three former senior managers were fined £700,000 and banned from working in financial services.

In this case the FSA - which has powers to prosecute individuals for misleading the markets – decided the omission of information relating to loan impairments in the group's 2007 accounts was an unfortunate cock-up, rather than a dark conspiracy.

As outsiders looking on at the enforcement process it is always worth remembering the full facts are out of view.

But it is the outside impression which sets the tone in the City. And there is no question that, on current form, despite a string of successful insider dealing prosecutions, Britain still has a long way to go before its watchdogs and white collar crime prosecutors earn the same level of fearful respect afforded to their counterparts in the US.

The FSA will shortly see responsibility for dishing out City discipline pass to the new Financial Conduct Authority, under chief executive designate Martin Wheatley, It remains to be seen whether he too will appear to spare the rod and risk spoiling the child.